Today is Mother’s Day and I am headed over to my parents house this afternoon for a nice dinner with the family .My mother won’t let me cook for her on Mother’s Day. She feels that one day she won’t be able to do it.

I am blessed to have a really awesome mom. She’s one of the smartest people I know, a fabulous cook, a warm and wonderful person. While my divorce was really hard on her, she’s done so much for Frankie and I (and even Margarita) to help make us a family. It’s nothing major, just a lot of little things. Making Frankie Mac and cheese when we come over to visit, picking up books from the library he might like.

I tend to remember the wonderful little things my mom had done for me over the years.

We moved to Atlanta when I was in the first grade. I remember every other kid in my class had this glue that had a pirate on it. I had Elmer’s. I told her that a kid made fun of me because I had a cow on my glue. My mom drove around to 4 different stores to find the Pirate glue so her little boy wouldn’t be laughed at.

My 3rd grade class grew tulips and decorated pots to grow them in. It’s the Friday of Mother’s Day weekend and everyone is sitting with their pots and tulips riding home on the bus. Getting off the bus, in front of my house , I tripped and my pot was smashed. I sat on the step of our house crying. My mom told me she loved her tulip because it was unique. We planted the tulip bulb in front of the house.

For all my failures and shortcomings, I never seem to let her down. I am proud to be her son.

I spent a good chunk of the past few years feeling like I’ve had a couple of giant letters stenciled to everything I owned. One was the letter “D” for divorce and the other letter was for “L” for loser. They were letters only visable to me.

The letter “d” was a hard one to get used to at first. Especially when you are starting out on this road. People in my family tend to stay together (better or worse, thick and thin, rich or poor). Whenever I go to a family function, I used to feel like I stood out. I had a wife, now I didn’t. I’d get a ride from my parents to a party or holiday gathering or whatever. Even though no one made me feel that way, I always felt like all eyes were on me. Even when I’d go to just hang out with my friends, everyone was either married or had a girlfriend. When July of 2009 came around and I moved back in with my parents. I like there was this giant letter on my back that stood for divorce. I couldn’t move forward as long as I wore this letter. I carried it around like this giant rock on my back. It was heavy and it hurt.

I’ve struggled financially these past 4 years. I’ve had troubles with keeping the personal aspects of my life out of the office. It has led me to be out of work for periods of time. It has caused me great financial difficulty, near ruin. I’d look at where I was pre divorce and then were I was, and it would be a reminder of just how far I’ve fallen. It was neither pretty nor fun. Losing everything will suck the life right out of you. I’d show up to parties with family or friends or whatever and people are talking about their great jobs and how they do this and that. And you are looking at the calander and trying to figure out the next time you can go to the food pantry. Or trying to come up with an excuse to tell your son that you can’t buy him all the legos in the world and why hiking in the woods is more exciting then going to see a movie in the movie theatre. I talked about the letter “d” being heavy. The letter “L” weighs twice as much, and hurts quite a bit.

Wearing both of those letters can make you bitter, resentful, angry, and any other host of words-if you let them. I let those letters rule my life for a really long time.

I woke up one day in January and let the letter “D” stop ruling my life. Then I took a look in the mirror one morning, realized that my divorce did not idenify who I was or what I was. There was more to me then just this guy going through a rough divorce.

It took me awhile longer to shed the letter “L”. One Sunday after a weekend of hiking, riding scooters, and watching James Bond with #5. He said to me, “this was a really fun weekend, dad. I had a great time”. I felt that letter “L” slide off my back. That, maybe for all of the struggles I am not a loser (no matter what the critics may say). And that any day you are above dirt is a day you are not a loser.

I am far from perfect and have a long way to go. Shedding my letters was a big step in the right direction.